>Right-wing activists aiming to amend the Constitution have some company on the left. Advocates of campaign finance restrictions, outraged by the Citizens United decision, have proposed a constitutional amendment allowing Congress and the states to regulate political speech "by any corporate entity." The breadth of this proposal is, well, breathtaking: it would permit the criminalization of political advocacy (including criticism of political candidates) not just by presumptively big bad corporations, but by non-profit advocacy groups, large and small; and, its intended effect on media corporations is unclear. The amendment includes a provision stating that it "shall not be construed to abridge the freedom of the press," but given the insistence of reformers that a ban on expenditures is not a ban on free speech, you have to wonder what they mean by "freedom."

You always have to ask what they mean by "press." Corporate speech can't be regulated effectively without regulating the media, especially in an age of corporate conglomeration, when behemoths like GE buy and sell major networks; and, from a liberal perspective, the single, most influential mega wealthy corporation disseminating misinformation and corrupting the political process is Fox News. If reformers somehow succeeded in imposing a ban on independent corporate expenditures that exempted media corporations, their success would be self-defeating: it would effectively enhance monopolies already enjoyed by Fox and other corporate mainstream media. Given these practical realities complicating the drive to restrict corporate political spending--the ascendence of highly partisan corporate news operations, the changing nature of media, and the media functions performed or acquired by large corporations or advocacy groups that rely partly on corporate funding (like Citizen's United, recently granted a media exemption)--it's hard to take reformers seriously when they profess their commitment to a free press.

Just listen to the Huffington Post crow, "Fox News Lawyers Up" in response to a complaint against it filed with the Ohio Elections Commission by the Democratic Governor's Association for allegedly violating state campaign finance laws. "Lawyers Up?" What was Fox News supposed to do--not hire lawyers to defend its rights as a media corporation, not respond to a frivolous complaint? Fox's alleged offense was running a chyron advertising gubernatorial candidate John Kasich's website during an interview with him on O'Reilly. According to the DGA complaint, this constituted an illegal contribution in kind to the Kasich campaign.

It's not surprising that the DGA filed this complaint, but it is still a bit of a shock since, as Fox's response points out, "there is no doubt that FNC fits the traditional definition of a press entity, while the O'Reilly Factor clearly fits in the category of shows involving commentary and interviews with public figures... it is hard to seriously argue that interviewing a candidate for office is not a legitimate press function." Fox also stresses that "the complaint does not allege or present any evidence that FNC is owned or controlled by a political party, political committee, or candidate," and liberals who consider the Republican Party an arm of Fox News would at least have to concede this point.

But the crusade for campaign finance reform is not distinguished by logic, intellectual honesty, or even an understanding of the complicated legal history and practical realities of campaign finance. Generally (I've observed in discussions and debates), many advocates of reform don't seem to realize that restrictions on corporate political expenditures have applied, and, pursuant to the proposed constitutional amendment would apply to their favorite not for profit advocacy groups, as well as "big bad" business corporations. They tend to exaggerate the allegedly unprecedented "floods" of corporate money likely to be released by the Citizen's United decision, which struck down a ban on election season corporate advocacy financed by general treasury funds; it did not address the vast amounts of money spent by independent tax exempt groups, like 527's (and it's hard to predict whether corporations will want to spend huge amounts of general treasury funds on campaigns). Many advocates for reform also tend not to distinguish between limits on direct contributions to candidates from individuals or corporations (which remain subject to regulation) and limits on independent expenditures by corporations--which is a bit like not distinguishing between giving a scholarship to a particular student and (without consulting any scholarship recipients) buying ad advocating for or against scholarships in general.

Or, consider reformers' insistence that "money isn't speech." Put aside the fact that liberals never complain that money isn't abortion rights when they lobby for medicaid funds or that money isn't the right to an attorney when they lobby for indigent defense funding. Instead, simply remember reformers' claim that money isn't speech when they explain that restrictions on corporate expenditures are essential to democracy because monopolizing wealth enables corporations to monopolize speech. In other words, they implicitly argue, we need campaign finance restrictions because money is speech. But explicitly conceding that money is speech would require them to acknowledge an intent to limit First Amendment rights, to engage in arguments about the value of corporate political advocacy, and present compelling reasons for criminalizing it. That's a debate advocates of reform want very much to avoid, which is why they also attack the notion of corporate personhood.

Like the slogan "money isn't speech," "corporations aren't people" endowed with individual rights, has a certain visceral appeal--especially when you don't acknowledge that corporate personhood is a metaphor. And, like "money isn't speech," the insistence that "corporations aren't people" is employed selectively: The 4th and 5th amendments explicitly apply to "people" and "persons," but I have yet to hear any liberal advocate of campaign finance reform argue that the government may subject corporations to unreasonable searches and seizures or prosecutions devoid of due process.

Still these slogans are effective in no small part because they frame the movement to restrict corporate political speech as a populist crusade. (The progressive website promoting a constitutional amendment is called freespeechforpeople.org.) Yet this supposedly populist movement has a paternalistic heart: The actual effect of political advertising (a primary target of reformers) is difficult to measure. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't; just ask Meg Whitman. But reformers--who don't seem to believe they base their own votes on political ads--assume that many voters are stupid or ignorant and easily manipulated by advertising. Whether or not this assumption is true, it belies the image of campaign finance reform as a populist crusade; it's a crusade that mistrusts the populace.

And, however stupid voters may be, they're surely no stupider than progressive reformers who want to repeal or amend the First Amendment. Reformers are apparently stupid enough to believe that Congress and state legislatures, increasingly dominated by right wing Republicans (who will exert considerable control over redistricting and appear poised to take over the Senate in 2012) would enact an amendment that would advance progressive policies. Prominent progressives, including editors at The Nation, are even willing to support the constitutional convention so devoutly desired by the far right. "The Nation is committed to (this) struggle as one that is in the noblest traditions of this magazine," an editorial proclaims. "We will do everything in our power to further it, with no quarter for cynicism or compromise," and, they might have added, "with no reality testing." It's not cynicism that desires a progressive political movement to display a minimum of political intelligence.

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His paranoid style paved the road for Trumpism. Now he fears what’s been unleashed.

Glenn Beck looks like the dad in a Disney movie. He’s earnest, geeky, pink, and slightly bulbous. His idea of salty language is bullcrap.

The atmosphere at Beck’s Mercury Studios, outside Dallas, is similarly soothing, provided you ignore the references to genocide and civilizational collapse. In October, when most commentators considered a Donald Trump presidency a remote possibility, I followed audience members onto the set of The Glenn Beck Program, which airs on Beck’s website, theblaze.com. On the way, we passed through a life-size replica of the Oval Office as it might look if inhabited by a President Beck, complete with a portrait of Ronald Reagan and a large Norman Rockwell print of a Boy Scout.

“Well, you’re just special. You’re American,” remarked my colleague, smirking from across the coffee table. My other Finnish coworkers, from the school in Helsinki where I teach, nodded in agreement. They had just finished critiquing one of my habits, and they could see that I was on the defensive.

I threw my hands up and snapped, “You’re accusing me of being too friendly? Is that really such a bad thing?”

“Well, when I greet a colleague, I keep track,” she retorted, “so I don’t greet them again during the day!” Another chimed in, “That’s the same for me, too!”

Unbelievable, I thought. According to them, I’m too generous with my hellos.

When I told them I would do my best to greet them just once every day, they told me not to change my ways. They said they understood me. But the thing is, now that I’ve viewed myself from their perspective, I’m not sure I want to remain the same. Change isn’t a bad thing. And since moving to Finland two years ago, I’ve kicked a few bad American habits.

Why the ingrained expectation that women should desire to become parents is unhealthy

In 2008, Nebraska decriminalized child abandonment. The move was part of a "safe haven" law designed to address increased rates of infanticide in the state. Like other safe-haven laws, parents in Nebraska who felt unprepared to care for their babies could drop them off in a designated location without fear of arrest and prosecution. But legislators made a major logistical error: They failed to implement an age limitation for dropped-off children.

Within just weeks of the law passing, parents started dropping off their kids. But here's the rub: None of them were infants. A couple of months in, 36 children had been left in state hospitals and police stations. Twenty-two of the children were over 13 years old. A 51-year-old grandmother dropped off a 12-year-old boy. One father dropped off his entire family -- nine children from ages one to 17. Others drove from neighboring states to drop off their children once they heard that they could abandon them without repercussion.

Trinidad has the highest rate of Islamic State recruitment in the Western hemisphere. How did this happen?

This summer, the so-called Islamic State published issue 15 of its online magazine Dabiq. In what has become a standard feature, it ran an interview with an ISIS foreign fighter. “When I was around twenty years old I would come to accept the religion of truth, Islam,” said Abu Sa’d at-Trinidadi, recalling how he had turned away from the Christian faith he was born into.

At-Trinidadi, as his nom de guerre suggests, is from the Caribbean island of Trinidad and Tobago (T&T), a country more readily associated with calypso and carnival than the “caliphate.” Asked if he had a message for “the Muslims of Trinidad,” he condemned his co-religionists at home for remaining in “a place where you have no honor and are forced to live in humiliation, subjugated by the disbelievers.” More chillingly, he urged Muslims in T&T to wage jihad against their fellow citizens: “Terrify the disbelievers in their own homes and make their streets run with their blood.”

The same part of the brain that allows us to step into the shoes of others also helps us restrain ourselves.

You’ve likely seen the video before: a stream of kids, confronted with a single, alluring marshmallow. If they can resist eating it for 15 minutes, they’ll get two. Some do. Others cave almost immediately.

This “Marshmallow Test,” first conducted in the 1960s, perfectly illustrates the ongoing war between impulsivity and self-control. The kids have to tamp down their immediate desires and focus on long-term goals—an ability that correlates with their later health, wealth, and academic success, and that is supposedly controlled by the front part of the brain. But a new study by Alexander Soutschek at the University of Zurich suggests that self-control is also influenced by another brain region—and one that casts this ability in a different light.

Should you drink more coffee? Should you take melatonin? Can you train yourself to need less sleep? A physician’s guide to sleep in a stressful age.

During residency, Iworked hospital shifts that could last 36 hours, without sleep, often without breaks of more than a few minutes. Even writing this now, it sounds to me like I’m bragging or laying claim to some fortitude of character. I can’t think of another type of self-injury that might be similarly lauded, except maybe binge drinking. Technically the shifts were 30 hours, the mandatory limit imposed by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education, but we stayed longer because people kept getting sick. Being a doctor is supposed to be about putting other people’s needs before your own. Our job was to power through.

The shifts usually felt shorter than they were, because they were so hectic. There was always a new patient in the emergency room who needed to be admitted, or a staff member on the eighth floor (which was full of late-stage terminally ill people) who needed me to fill out a death certificate. Sleep deprivation manifested as bouts of anger and despair mixed in with some euphoria, along with other sensations I’ve not had before or since. I remember once sitting with the family of a patient in critical condition, discussing an advance directive—the terms defining what the patient would want done were his heart to stop, which seemed likely to happen at any minute. Would he want to have chest compressions, electrical shocks, a breathing tube? In the middle of this, I had to look straight down at the chart in my lap, because I was laughing. This was the least funny scenario possible. I was experiencing a physical reaction unrelated to anything I knew to be happening in my mind. There is a type of seizure, called a gelastic seizure, during which the seizing person appears to be laughing—but I don’t think that was it. I think it was plain old delirium. It was mortifying, though no one seemed to notice.

A professor of cognitive science argues that the world is nothing like the one we experience through our senses.

As we go about our daily lives, we tend to assume that our perceptions—sights, sounds, textures, tastes—are an accurate portrayal of the real world. Sure, when we stop and think about it—or when we find ourselves fooled by a perceptual illusion—we realize with a jolt that what we perceive is never the world directly, but rather our brain’s best guess at what that world is like, a kind of internal simulation of an external reality. Still, we bank on the fact that our simulation is a reasonably decent one. If it wasn’t, wouldn’t evolution have weeded us out by now? The true reality might be forever beyond our reach, but surely our senses give us at least an inkling of what it’s really like.

“All the world has failed us,” a resident of the Syrian city of Aleppo told the BBC this week, via a WhatsApp audio message. “The city is dying. Rapidly by bombardment, and slowly by hunger and fear of the advance of the Assad regime.”

In recent weeks, the Syrian military, backed by Russian air power and Iran-affiliated militias, has swiftly retaken most of eastern Aleppo, the last major urban stronghold of rebel forces in Syria. Tens of thousands of besieged civilians are struggling to survive and escape the fighting, amid talk of a rebel retreat. One of the oldest continuously inhabited cities on earth, the city of the Silk Road and the Great Mosque, of muwashshah and kibbeh with quince, of the White Helmets and Omran Daqneesh, is poised to fall to Bashar al-Assad and his benefactors in Moscow and Tehran, after a savage four-year stalemate. Syria’s president, who has overseen a war that has left hundreds of thousands of his compatriots dead, will inherit a city robbed of its human potential and reduced to rubble.

Democrats who have struggled for years to sell the public on the Affordable Care Act are now confronting a far more urgent task: mobilizing a political coalition to save it.

Even as the party reels from last month’s election defeat, members of Congress, operatives, and liberal allies have turned to plotting a campaign against repealing the law that, they hope, will rival the Tea Party uprising of 2009 that nearly scuttled its passage in the first place. A group of progressive advocacy groups will announce on Friday a coordinated effort to protect the beneficiaries of the Affordable Care Act and stop Republicans from repealing the law without first identifying a plan to replace it.

They don’t have much time to fight back. Republicans on Capitol Hill plan to set repeal of Obamacare in motion as soon as the new Congress opens in January, and both the House and Senate could vote to wind down the law immediately after President-elect Donald Trump takes the oath of office on the 20th.

Even in big cities like Tokyo, small children take the subway and run errands by themselves. The reason has a lot to do with group dynamics.

It’s a common sight on Japanese mass transit: Children troop through train cars, singly or in small groups, looking for seats.

They wear knee socks, polished patent-leather shoes, and plaid jumpers, with wide-brimmed hats fastened under the chin and train passes pinned to their backpacks. The kids are as young as 6 or 7, on their way to and from school, and there is nary a guardian in sight.

A popular television show called Hajimete no Otsukai, or My First Errand, features children as young as two or three being sent out to do a task for their family. As they tentatively make their way to the greengrocer or bakery, their progress is secretly filmed by a camera crew. The show has been running for more than 25 years.